


Scream Without Raising Your Voice

by OldEmeraldEye



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Firefly
Genre: During Canon - Firefly Series, Medical Experimentation, Portals, Post-Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), River Tam Is A Slayer, Simon Tam Is Trying His Best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-19 03:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29868681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldEmeraldEye/pseuds/OldEmeraldEye
Summary: Simon has so many regrets. The specifics vary, but his emotions do not.
Relationships: River Tam & Simon Tam
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Scream Without Raising Your Voice

Simon is rapidly reconsidering the idea - series of ideas, really - that led to his being in the back rooms of an Alliance hospital.

His sister is not well. Simon had thought, perhaps if he could design a better dosage or plan of treatment with the information the scans - but knowing Alliance blackbook opperation had intentionally _removed part of brain_ changed the parameters of the situation. There is no fixing that. Regulating, perhaps, but no miracle cure that can return what was stolen from her.

And now they are running through storage facility, he, and River and Jayne, and River is _not well_. Generally, as far from well as can be, but sharp deterioration in lucidity is cause for additional concern. Did the machine serve as a trigger? An adverse reaction to drugs they'd both taken to get in? Simon doesn't know.

"Two by two, hands of … green?"

No more than five seconds later, he can see the cause of her confusion. It's rare that that's the case. Sometimes, he can make conjecture, weave fuzzy webs of association that seem, perhaps, to tangentially relate River's words to recent events, but he lacks so many points of reference that he makes Holmes of Earth That Was seem grounded in empirical reality.

The air in front of the door the three of them had just came through distorts. Like the waver of hot air, only much closer and much more apparent. The walls at the edge of this strange new apparition are beginning to distort alarmingly. He pulls River behind him, trying to move the two of them as far away as he can without her active cooperation or awareness. Jayne stays where he is. Simon's fine with that. In fact … he edges around to put him between the two of them and the phenomenon.

And just in time too.

Simon blinks, his eyes stinging, and there is a girl where there was no girl before.

"Hello there. Hi. Looking for a Slayer we lost somewhere around here."

She looks perfectly ordinary.

Her clothes are slightly odd, but this _is_ the core. Fashion changes on a dime here, and Simon's been away on Serenity for months. It wouldn't have surprised him if cutouts had come back into fashion. Well, mostly. He does still possess some degree of taste. 

The universe has clearly gone insane. Simon has known so since he first received River's coded letters, but to have it confirmed is quite beyond the pale light of the core.

Jayne's gun comes up. The girl's leg flashes up and across to meet it. Simon blinks, and blinks again to clear away the afterimage blur.

The girl is standing still, her empty hands hanging loosely at her sides. Jayne is sitting on his ass.

And Simon can't even take a moment to enjoy it, because now he and River are clearly visible. "Look, I think we can just –"

River perks up, nearly startling Simon out of his skin. "You're strong."

"I know. You are too."


End file.
